GeForce GTX 460 to Come in Distinct Variants, Launch Date Surfaces

The much talked about upcoming GeForce GTX 460 GPU from NVIDIA was recently pictured and detailed. Out of its first, grainy pictures, it became clear that the GF104 core it's based on indeed supports a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, but that only six of its eight 32-bit wide channels were occupied (192-bit), yielding 768 MB of memory. Fresh reports suggest that NVIDIA indeed will release the GeForce GTX 460 in two variants, a 768 MB one, and a 1024 MB (1 GB). The 1 GB variant by design will be faster, even if an application doesn't need all its video memory, because it will have a wider 256-bit memory interface, that's 25% higher memory bandwidth. Both variants will have the same memory clock speed of 900 MHz (3600 MHz effective). The GF104 core will be clocked at 675 MHz on both models, with 336 CUDA cores. Built on the 40 nm process at TSMC, the GeForce GTX 460 768 MB will have a TDP of 150W, while the 1 GB model will have a TDP of 160W. New reports suggest that the 768 MB model will be priced at less than $200. NVIDIA will release the GeForce GTX 460 on the 12th of July.